Man of Song, Man of WordsNed Rorem (Mu44, H77) has been a leading talent for decades
in two creative domains.

Though
the writer uses the written word and a composer the musical note, each
strives to convey powerful emotions to his audience. Ned Rorem has proven
to be gifted  and prolific  in both media.

Ranked among the most accomplished living composers, Rorem (Mu44,
H77) is also respected for capturing the flavor of modern society and
literary culture as a diarist.

While living in France in the early 1950s, he candidly recorded the
details of his life as "an American in post-Hemingway Paris."
His diary, which chronicled not only his work as a young composer but
also his sexual exploits with some notable figures, raised many an eyebrow.
When Rorem published The Paris Diary in 1966, he became one of
the first leading artistic figures to speak openly of his homosexuality.

"Overnight I became far better known as a diarist than a composer,"
Rorem notes of the diarys success.

In the years to come he would author 14 more books. As seen through
his words in the Paris Diary and the New York Diary, Rorems
early years are colored by galloping energy, youthful narcissism and a
whirlwind of famous faces. But in Lies: A Diary 19861999,
these fade to the background. His pace has slowed, though he still writes
with intelligence and idiosyncratic humor. "JH [James Holmes] says
its time I stop saying I can set anything  even the
phone book  to music. Id give anything for a good phone book."

As he details the painful, AIDS-related passing of Holmes, his partner
of 30 years, he was barely able to contain his grief within the pages.
"In Kosovo, in Ireland, in privileged American schools, still more
gratuitous murders en masse. But here it rains and rains all night, and
Jim is dead."

Despite his greater fame as a writer than a musician, Rorem remains
committed to composing. His Air Music suite won the Pulitzer Prize
in music in 1976; the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Symphony and the
Lincoln Center Foundation, among others, have commissioned pieces. "I
am a composer who happens to write, not a writer who happens to compose,"
he says, bristling at the latter notion.

Growing up on Chicagos South Side in the 1920s, Rorem began
music lessons at a young age, already composing by the age of 10. At 17
he entered Northwesterns School of Music, where he began writing
songs, the genre for which he is perhaps most famous. His first songs
at the University used poetry by ee cummings as lyrics.

Rorem is saddened that public interest in new pieces today is at
its lowest point in centuries, despite the high numbers of talented young
composers.

"This is the only time in history where music from the past
is more important than the music of today," he says. "Now the
performer is more important than the piece. A soprano gets paid more for
one performance than I do for writing an entire opera."

Working at his homes in New York City and Nantucket Island, Mass.,
he is currently composing a flute concerto for the Philadelphia orchestra
to be performed in 2003. Rorem is also president of the prestigious American
Academy of Arts and Letters  a New York-based honorary academy of
notable American artists, composers and writers.

As for his place in the world, Rorem says, "I do very much want
to be remembered. I think part of what any artist does is to remain on
the earth for one, 10, maybe 100 years after he dies. Its about
his posterity."